The Primary Source - "Tufts' journal of conservative thought" - filed a complaint with the Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ) following the April 27 referendum election.
The election was held to determine whether students would support each paying an additional $20 per year for the University to use wind power as an energy source, and passed with 88 percent student approval.
The members of the Primary Source requested that the results be invalidated.
According to the Primary Source, the TCU Elections Board (ELBO) handled the referendum election unfairly, only presenting the pro-wind energy argument. After hearing the appeal, the TCUJ decided unanimously in favor of ELBO: that the election results should still stand.
Editor-in-Chief of the Primary Source junior Nick Boyd filed the complaint on May 2 against ELBO's handling of the election. Boyd was unable to make the hearing, so junior Nicole Brusco represented the Primary Source in front of the TCUJ on May 8.
"ELBO was not an impartial and fair party [to the elections]," Brusco said. "The referendum [submitted by ECO] was constitutional - our problem was with ELBO."
According to the members of the Primary Source, ELBO's election Web site had a link to Environmental Consciousness Outreach's (ECO) information in favor of wind energy, but no representation of an opposing view. "ELBO neglected information about the other side," Brusco said. "The election needs to be overturned; it clearly was not fair."
On the ELBO Web site, "the issue is the candidate's page," Brusco said. "[The page said] more info on the ECO campaign, not more info on wind power."
ELBO Chair sophomore Denise Wiseman defended the election, and said that the Primary Source's complaint was "nothing more than an act to lash out about elections that didn't go their way."
Wiseman's interpretation of fairness was different from that of the Primary Source's. "'Fair' to ELBO is giving all students an opportunity to vote," she said. She then pointed to a 40 percent voter turnout for the referendum, which was higher than the TCU Presidential election turnout a week earlier on April 20.
According to Wiseman, it is not the responsibility of ELBO to seek out information about both sides of an election. "ECO voluntarily gave the contents [supporting wind power] to us," she said.
She also said that the ECO information was not posted on ELBO's Web site until 1:00 p.m. - four hours after the online polls had opened. "It was clear by [11 a.m.] what the results would be," she said. Wiseman said that the old candidate bios for the TCU Presidential election were still on the ELBO Web site up until 1 p.m.
The TCUJ's decision sided with ELBO, but also offered a mandate to change future procedures for referendum elections. According to the TCUJ report, "while ELBO was incorrect in posting the ECO information, the margin of victory of this referendum was such as to negate any possible effects of the Web site posting."
For all following referendum elections, the TCUJ has mandated that the TCU President and members of the TCU Senate fact-finding committee take responsibility to make every effort to research information and thoroughly understand both sides of the issues called into question by the proposed referendum, then present both sides on the ELBO Web site.
"We feel that these new procedures will both increase the impartiality of the process by which referenda are conducted, as well as continue to foster a more informed, more knowledgeable student body," the TCUJ stated in its official decision.
With regard to possibly bringing wind power to Tufts, no significant progress has been made since the election. Although students showed enormous support to bring wind energy to campus, the University's Board of Trustees will make the final decision.
"We're still working on getting it on their agenda," ECO member sophomore Amanda Fencl said. "[Tufts Climate Initiative] has basically taken on calling people and doing the running around to figure out how to make that happen. Basically, no one knows what to do because a referendum of this sort hasn't been passed in a really long time."
According to Fencl, there are numerous business plans from which the trustees will choose. "The trustees could vote to appropriate existing funds if they're against raising student fees, or they could vote to incur the fee," she said.
"It is basically out of students' hands," Fencl said. "In the fall, depending on how negotiations go, ECO or other interested students may take action to pressure the administration to make a decision."
Boyd said he was not content with the TCUJ decision, however, and said he intends to appeal it to the Committee on Student Life (CSL) at the beginning of the Fall 2005 semester. "The Primary Source holds that both the TCU Judiciary's decision and the solution the TCUJ advocates to what it argues was not a problem are flawed," Boyd said.
Members of the TCUJ said they are not worried about the appeal. "I don't think [the CSL overturning a mandate] has ever happened. I doubt our decision will be overturned," TCUJ member sophomore Shiva Bhashyam said.
